


Armistice

by SaltCore



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Brainwashing, Hurt/Comfort, Language, M/M, Violence, cyberninja!hanzo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-11-29 03:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18217718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: Talon is tempering flesh and bone into weapons, burning away humanity and memory in the process.One lays himself down.Perhaps with time, he will rise and learn to be a man again.





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long way down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yall know what this is. So much thanks to Mirdala for proofing

Jesse stumbles again, dragging them both sideways. Hanzo reflexively tightens his grip on the arm slung over his shoulder, but he has to stop to readjust his hold on Jesse’s belt. Jesse’s breathing is ragged, as if he’s been running, though they’ve barely managed a walking pace. If they have to go much further, he might collapse.

Hanzo hears shouting, the staccato tempo of orders clear even if the words aren’t. He's heard it before, but it's closer now. The Talon squad is gaining on them. He tugs Jesse forward, ignoring his partner’s pained groan.

They aren’t going to make it. Not at this pace.

Hanzo spots a storage closet, and he hesitates. The rest of the team is on the other side of the complex, pinned down according to the stream of chatter in his ear. There’s no chance of help if this Talon squad finds them. If they can hide, even for a little while, then he can start an emitter for Jesse. Maybe improve their odds. Certainly improve _his_ odds. 

Hanzo grits his teeth and turns toward the door. He clumsily pulls it open, almost losing his grip on Jesse, and staggers inside. Luckily, there’s just enough room to lay Jesse down. Hanzo eases him to the floor, trying to be as gentle as he can. Jesse stares up at him from the floor, glassy eyed and breathing through clenched teeth.

The wound is high on Jesse’s leg, bleeding more heavily that Hanzo realized. An unsettling amount of Jesse’s blood has soaked his pants and chaps, staining a swath of the material almost black. Hanzo cuts a strip out of the other chap with the knife in his boot and ties it around Jesse’s leg, hoping he won’t bleed out before the emitter can do its work, then digs through his kit for the little silver canister. His hands are slick with Jesse’s blood, and he almost bites through his lip trying to turn it on as it slips in his grip. Finally, it starts, a golden glow enveloping them both. Hanzo pulls off his jacket and folds it, then tucks it under Jesse’s head. Jesse’s eyes have already slipped closed, the anesthetic from the emitter enough to put him under.

A full emitter won’t get him into fighting shape, Hanzo realizes. If it stabilizes him, he’ll be lucky. And if Talon finds him before then—

They won’t, Hanzo decides. He’ll make sure of it.

Hanzo pulls his comm out of his pocket, starts the emergency beacon, and sets it beside Jesse. He takes his earpiece out next and sets it beside the comm. Methodically, he divests himself of everything but the bare minimum needed to fight. Either he will come back for it, or he won’t. It’s not worth risking bringing anything that could lead Talon back to Overwatch in either case.

He stares down at Jesse. He’d be angry, if he knew what Hanzo was about to do. Would tell him not to go. But Hanzo is selfish, and he would rather take the risk to ensure Talon doesn't find Jesse than sit here and hope.

“I’m sorry,” Hanzo murmurs. He bends over Jesse and kisses his forehead. “I’ll try to come back to you.”

The Talon squad isn’t expecting the attack. They thought they were tracking wounded prey. Hanzo dispatches three before he lets himself be seen, and then he leads them away, shooting back when he can.

The fools follow him into a long corridor. Perhaps they think they’ve cornered him. It shows how little they know. Just as the whole squad enters, Hanzo reaches down deep within himself and catches a single thread. He tugs it with all his might, reciting an incantation that’s almost reflex. Two furious, familiar spirits burst into existence, rattling the walls and tearing his enemies to shreds.

It’s a massacre.

And Hanzo walks out the victor.

High on the exhilaration of the summoning, he doesn’t notice the second squad until their sharpshooter has fired. First he feels the impact, then hears the sound. He only manages a single shot before he collapses, dizzy and weak. His only comfort as he falls is that they didn’t find Jesse.

As he’s lying on the ground, bleeding and trying to reach again for that thread to pull his dragons back in a desperate attempt at a second summoning, boots enter his field of view.

“Holy shit, he's a Shimada.”

The boots tip him over onto his back. He glares up at the masked face with every ounce of defiance he has left.

“Fuck me running, you’re right.”

“Take him with us.”

The last thing he sees is the butt of a rifle driving down toward his head.

 

* * *

 

In the aftermath, Jesse went quiet.

All they found was a broken, bloodied quiver. It’s a poor substitute for a body, far too small a thing to weigh uncertainty into closure.

Time, however, has a way of compressing events into a narrative that begs understanding. It’s been months since that mission. There hasn’t been any trace of Hanzo, and so there’s only one terrible conclusion to draw. Jesse was the last of them to accept the obvious, but even he can’t deny it any longer.

Hanzo’s gone.

He left Jesse in that little room to draw the enemy away and lost his life in the process.

There’s no saving him, only honoring his memory. So that’s what Jesse’s doing, months after the fact, out on the cliffs they used to frequent. He waited until sunset, because Hanzo had always liked the way the dying light painted the sky in vivid colors. Jesse brought a bottle of his favorite sake, ordered special well before that mission. It was supposed to be a birthday gift. It will more than do for a funeral.

Maybe he should have brought out the cups, served it up proper. But without a grave, there’s no doing anything _proper_ , so Jesse makes do.

Jesse steps up to the edge, looks down at the sea foaming around the rocks. Something about the sight of the thrashing water feels right. Jesse knows in his bones that Hanzo didn’t go down without a fight, and that’s a comfort, cold though it is. He pours a generous portion from the bottle out over the cliff, then watches as the wind catches it and turns it into a mist as it carries it away. Maybe there’s some kind of poetry in that. Maybe some minuscule fraction of the sake will end up wherever Hanzo found his rest.

Jesse takes a long drink himself, but barely tastes it. He almost doesn't want to. He’s only ever liked sake cut with the taste of Hanzo’s mouth. He’s only drinking it now to get a little reprieve from his grief.

The last thing he remembers is Hanzo laying him down. He doesn’t know if Hanzo told him something, if he had a plan. Jesse doesn’t think he did, because of how much gear he left behind. And that stings.

The last thing Jesse wanted was someone else he loved dying, especially on his behalf.

As he’s taking another swallow, he hears the crunch of gravel under the sound of the wind and the waves. Someone is coming up the path. He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t really care who it is.

“Hey, Jess.”

Fareeha. Could have been worse. She walks until she’s standing just beside him. For a long few moments, she doesn’t say anything, but the weight of her presence is a comfort in itself. Eventually she reaches out and grips his shoulder. She digs her fingers in, just a bit, forcing him to feel that she’s there. Grounds him with the touch.

“What are you doing out here?”

Jesse motions with the bottle toward the ocean, as if that could begin to explain what is it he’s doing and what it’s supposed to mean. Fareeha rubs her hand from one shoulder to the other, then back and waits for him to speak.

“‘M just—just tryin’ to say goodbye.”

“I’m so sorry, _hermano_.”

“It’s just—” he stops, take a ragged breath. “Those motherfuckers didn’t even leave us somethin’ to bury! It feels like we left him, Reeha.”

“I know,” she says softly. She tugs him into her side, own arm thrown over his shoulders, and he lets her carry some of his weight.

In Blackwatch, they never left their own dead behind. Not even at the end, when it was all unraveling. That was a line Reyes never crossed.

 _Reyes_. An old curl of grief twists in with the new. Reyes didn’t get a proper grave either. Not for the first time, Jesse wonders where it went wrong. But now, right here, he sees something he didn’t before. 

“I think I get it now. How Reyes got to be that way.” Jesse stops to swallow and turn the memory of Reyes just after Rome over in his head. After all the crises that followed. “He loved Gerard. Not like I love—loved—” Jesse’s voice stalls out. He has the breathe, teeth gritted, for a long moment to get it back. “I get why he wanted to burn it all down after they killed Gerard. After your mama—”

Jesse is quiet for a moment, then he chokes on nothing, tips his head away. Fareeha reaches with her other arm, pulls him closer before he can run. He is rigid in her arms, as if he could delay the breakdown forever by holding himself still enough.

“It’s okay. You can let it out.”

“Ain’t ever brought anybody back to me,” Jesse grits out, voice muffled by her shoulder. She squeezes him, and he drops the bottle, its contents spilling into the dirt by their feet, to cling back. Fareeha tenses, perhaps bracing herself for his sobs, but they don’t come.

“We won’t let them get away with this,” she says.

A half-mad laugh bubbles up out of Jesse, and Fareeha pulls away just enough to look him in the face. He doesn't think she’s scared, but she’s certainly uneasy. Somewhere, he feels a little bad about that.

“Well, Boss did always want me to finish what he’d started. Better late than never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3


	2. Zero Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A weapon is commissioned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't do this without all the help from Mirdala

* * *

“You shouldn't have let me live.”

Hanzo means every bit of the threat threaded through those words, though he is painfully aware of his inability to act on it. Even if he weren’t strapped to this cot, Hanzo isn't sure he'd be able to get to his feet for something more demonstrative of his intent, like say, trying to break Akande Ogundimu’s nose. The fresh ache under the blood blotted dressing and his persistent dizziness are an unrelenting reminder of just how he came to be here. How badly his gamble went.

Not that he still wouldn't try for a suckerpunch, just for the principle of it.

“I disagree entirely. We are always in need of someone with your particular skill set.”

“I would sooner die than sink to your level.”

“You misunderstand me, Mr. Shimada.” Ogundimu leans closer, until they're almost nose to nose. “You _will_ work for us, either as an ally or as a weapon.”  

 

* * *

 

Hanzo gets his way.

He dies screaming.

Nanites are coursing through his veins, knitting freshly inserted muscle grafts into his existing musculature, binding the combination to ceramic plated bones. This feels not unlike every filament of tissue has been ignited all at once, but he was not supposed to be conscious during this process. Fourteen seconds before the screaming began, there was an anomalous spike in neural function that, had his eyes not opened and the screaming begun, could have been written off as a quirk in the still-settling electro-neural mesh in his brain.

His lungs disgorge a wordless howl, and if he could move he would have thrashed like a dying animal. He has been restrained against just such a thing, lest he accidentally open the network of fresh surgery incisions or shred his new ligaments with the force his body is now capable of generating. He is helpless as the burning sodium agony of his body consumes all the space in his skull.

His heart hammers, harder and faster, until it stutters into arrest. The nanites, with machine ignorance, keep working despite the fact that he is dying around them. His blood slows to sludge in his veins, denying his neurology oxygen. As his body fails the wirework of his brain, it begins to misfire, arcing connections to the recently isolated pieces of grey matter, and images flicker in on top of the white noise of pain.

_Wind in his hair. Salt in his nose. Mismatched hands on his face and warm lips and a voice like the summer sun. The weight of those hands on his waist, the feeling of those lips on his neck, the curl of that voice in his ears. Bright and precious and—_

_He was bleeding._

_They were alone._

_He was dying._

He cries out two syllables, raw and nigh unintelligible, then his eyes roll back into his head as his heart finally grinds to a halt. The screaming finally stops.

Shimada Hanzo dies.

But his body has been deemed important, _necessary_ , and so it is not allowed to stay dead.

Then ten milliliters of vasopressors chemically shock the heart back into motion, and as blood flows, autonomic reflexes twitch and the diaphragm moves and lungs drawn in new air. That air, a few seconds later, escapes past teeth with a sound not unlike the moan of a wounded animal.

Before he can claim any kind of real hold on his thoughts, he is given a more powerful sedative and robbed of consciousness as the next treatment is prepared.

 

* * *

 

_You can trust me._

_Listen to my voice._

_Remember my face._

_You can trust me._

These words echo in the twilight between sleeping and waking. They fill the cavernous void where thoughts should be, leave no room for doubt. Leave no room for anything. As he wakes, the words themselves fade, but the meaning remains.

He doesn’t remember the last time he woke.

He doesn’t remember anything at all.

He feels pain, but it is only a dull ache, suffusing him from marrow to skin. He tries to move to satisfy some instinctual urge, but the inertia of his body is too great to overcome.

His eyelids are the only muscles he can command, and he lifts them only to be met with a harsh, bright light. Reflex makes him squint, but he stares up into it, waiting for something, anything to happen.

Still, he starts when the light is suddenly eclipsed by a person, a red haired woman, rail thin and almost gaunt, who is staring down at him. She purses her lips but says nothing. He watches her eyes roam over him until he hears a voice speak from somewhere else _—_

“He’s regaining consciousness.”

 _—_ and he glances toward the source. Another person, shorter and rounder than the first. The first replies.

“Yes, I could tell by the way he’s opened his eyes.”

He watches the second person type into a terminal. There are screens everywhere, a riot of lines and colors that mean nothing to him. The woman snaps her fingers over his face, and he looks back at her.

“Can you understand me?”

He nods.

“What’s your name?”

He stares, unable to form an answer. He knows what a _name_ is, can even think of examples, but not one that feels like his.

“Do you know where you are?”

Silence.

“What year is it?”

More silence.

The woman doesn't react to his lack of answers. Instead, she turns sharply and nods to a third person, leaning against the wall. That person steps forward, a smile splitting his features.

“Hey there,” he says. His voice is soft, syllables coming slowly with perfect enunciation. “I know this is confusing, but it’s okay. I’m here to help. You are subject three dash zero nineteen. I’m your handler. You can trust me.”

He stares into that placid smile and finds he believes everything the man is saying. Feels, deeply, a call to obedience, to acquiesce to that soft, calm voice.

“Now, what did I say was your designation?” his handler asks.

“Subject 3-019.”

“Very good. And what are you?”

The answer floats up from the haze in his mind, crystalline in its clarity.

“A weapon.”

 

* * *

 

“Again.”

Subject 3-019 runs back and forth from successively more distant lines. His lungs burn as they suck in the stale, recirculated air filling this gymnasium. Sweat pours off his skin. A constellation of sensors tug and itch as he moves.

“Again.”

He was brought here not long after waking and told to run. He finds he has no particular feeling about this task.

“Again.”

He has orders. He completes them. It feels like a reflex, like breathing. What else could he do but what his handler says?

“Stop. Very good.”

He feels a faint satisfaction at his handler’s praise. The man is smiling at him again, lips pulled with rigor stiffness over his teeth. The technician beside him is bent over his tablet, paying Subject 3-019 no mind. His handler hands him a bottle _—_ water, room temperature.

“Drink up, Zero Nineteen.”

He drains the bottle dry in a few short gulps. The water feels good in his throat, but his body aches in a way having nothing to do with the exertion, and the water doesn’t help with that at all. His eyes hurt because of bright lights overhead, and his skin aches around the contact pads trailing a line down his spine, and he is uncomfortably aware of every single bone he has.

“Don’t overhydrate him,” the technician snaps. “He’s well within parameters.”

“Oh, c’mon, it’s water, man. It’s good for him.” His handler turns and claps him on the shoulder. Zero Nineteen doesn’t react, though he finds the feeling of his handler’s hand unpleasant. His skin is clammy, and he lingers just a bit too long.

“Cardiac function is nominative. So is respiration. Looks like he’s holding together.”

“Hear that, big guy? Sounds like you’re going to make it.”

“He’s still exhibiting those strange spikes in neural function.”

“You jammed a fuckload of circuitry in his head.”

The tech gives his handler a flat look.

“We’ve established a baseline from the other subjects. He’s outside of it.”

“You think it’ll be a problem?” his handler asks.

His hand drops away. The sensors itch, but Zero Nineteen doesn’t scratch at them. The tech shrugs.

“I guess we’ll know if he strokes out.”

 

* * *

 

There are more tests, more technicians, but eventually, it’s over. The latest tech removes the sensors, and then he’s taken somewhere new.

There is food his handler tells him to eat. It’s bland, verging on tasteless, but it soothes the hunger. He eats until it’s gone, only realizing now that some of his discomfort was the lack of food.

There is a shower his handler tells him to use. He stands under the spray of lukewarm water and looks down at himself. His left arm is covered in an intricate tattoo, starting at his wrist and terminating at his shoulder. It’s interrupted by thin, straight scars that cut through the ink without regard for what’s underneath. Similar scars continue along his skin far past the tattoo. He’s covered in them. One even bisects a round, knotted one on his stomach. It’s a gunshot wound. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he’s sure.

He is interrupted from his exploration by a sudden banging on the door.

“Come on, you’re done.”

So he must be.

There are clothes and towels waiting for him, so he shuts off the water then dries and dresses himself. When he exits the bathroom, his handler is waiting.

“Here, take these.”

His handler hands him a small cup containing pills and a larger cup with water. He swallows the pills, then follows them with the water. For the brief moment he can taste them, they taste bitter.

“Lie down. You’ll be asleep soon.” And with that, his handler leaves him for the first time.

Zero Nineteen eases onto the slab of a bed. It’s firm under his back, but not particularly unpleasant. He stares at the ceiling and waits.

Then, he hears something. He twists his head toward the door, but there’s no one there. He shivers in place, though the air isn’t cool. His skin tingles, from his finger- and toe tips back to his spine. He rubs his hands together, but that does nothing to stop the sensation.

The sound becomes clearer. It’s wordless, but melodic. Almost like a voice. No, like two voices. And it’s coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. It sounds—

Sounds sad.

His chest aches with it. It’s not like the ache in the rest of his body, it’s like his ribs are collapsing around a void. Like something used to hold his sternum up, and now it’s gone.

He focuses on that hurt, trying to suss it out. The tingling concentrates at the base of his skull, and he sees—

_A bowl appears at his elbow. Hands move his hair, gather it over one shoulder. Lips press against the newly exposed skin._

_“Got you dinner, sugar.”_

The memory is strange, out of place. Almost as if it belongs to someone else. The voice certainly wasn’t his handler, though he feels the same reflexive trust in it. And something else besides. Something more.

But before he can examine it further, a chemical weight coalesces around his thoughts, slowing them until unconsciousness overtakes him.

 

* * *

 

He is immediately entrenched in a routine: Wake. Eat. Tests. Tests. Eat. More tests. Training. Astonishingly, more tests. Eat. Wash. Sleep.

His handler is a constant presence, guiding him through this routine. The man isn’t a comfort, not exactly, but he is familiar. Zero Nineteen relies on him for direction, because there is so much he doesn’t know.

What the noises he hears are. What the tattoo means. How he had been shot.

But he’s never afforded and opportunity to ask, so he doesn’t.

He does know a few things, however.

How to disperse the energy from a three meter drop. How to string a bow. How to break an arm. At least three different languages, heard in passing.

Japanese—

“Hold still for the tech.” His handler, giving orders.

English—

“It’s that motherfucker McCree again! This is the third goddamn time since we hit Lagos.” A fireteam leader shouts, passing him in the hall toward some other part of the base.

Mandarin—

“If I never see that fucking cyborg again, it’ll be too soon.” A soldier with a newly minted prosthesis.

But no one asks him what he knows, so he doesn’t say.

 

* * *

 

The exam table is uncomfortable under his back, but he’s accustomed to it after having spent so much time in medical. The techs and the doctor are circled around one of the screens, but his handler is relaxed, looking down at his tablet, so Zero Nineteen remains calm as well.

Then, someone he hasn’t yet seen barges into the room. The man is enormous, cleanly shaven from chin to scalp, and though he’s not wearing any kind of uniform or indication of rank, Zero Nineteen’s handler immediately snaps to attention. The doctor and her assistants don’t seem to acknowledge him, instead continuing with what they had been doing. The man arches an eyebrow after a moment and clears his throat.

“Dr. O'Deorain—”

“Busy.”

“We’re all busy. Still, I require a moment of your time.”

The doctor purses her lips, but then turns away to face the man. She folds her hands behind her back and stands tall. Annoyed, but not worried. Zero Nineteen glances to his handler; the man is clearly in distress.

“What is it, Mr. Ogundimu?”

Instead of answering, he stalks around the perimeter of the room, looking at all the screens. He finally stops just in front of Zero Nineteen and turns toward him. The man meets his eyes, the first person today to do so. Zero Nineteen feels _something_ looking up at this man from the exam table. A reaction he can’t name, but one that leaves a sour feeling in his stomach and a restless energy in his limbs.

“How docile she’s made you,” he mutters. Then the man says to the doctor, “The failure rate is unacceptable.”

“Well, what precisely do you expect, when all you give me are your malcontents for test subjects?”

“I thought you were the best.”

“I am,” the doctor says, unfazed. “But the problem of the subpar raw material remains.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“The ablation of his medial temporal lobes didn’t take. There are spikes of activity in brain regions that should be isolated.”

“But otherwise? I’ve seen the reports, he’s performing.”

“The physical augmentations have been successful so far, but until we isolate the source of the neurological glitch, he’s merely a proof of concept.”

“Then let us _prove_ the _concept_ , doctor.”

“That is reckless! We can’t yet be sure if—”

“Enough. I need results in the field, or this project will have been nothing but a waste. He’s going to work.”

The man leans in closer. Out of the corner of his eye, Zero Nineteen sees his handler flinch.

“It didn’t have to be this way you know,” the man whispers, barely audible. “I would have returned everything to you.”

Zero Nineteen feels a static wash over him, like a buzzing under his skin. Some of the equipment starts to go haywire, screeching and beeping.

Action. This man’s presence demands action, demands _violence_. Zero Nineteen shoves himself off the table and pulls one arm back, hand curled into a fist. The man starts to lift his arm, but he’s too slow and Zero Nineteen connects that fist with his jaw. The man, for all his bulk and apparent strength, drops like a dead thing under the blow.

But Zero Nineteen isn’t done. He follows him to the floor, wraps his hands around the man’s neck. The buzzing feeling resolves itself in a single moment of clarity as he starts to squeeze.

Hate. He hates this man.

Then he feels something entirely different, an all-consuming pain preceded by his handler’s voice. His body goes limp and he falls, face first onto the floor. Just before he loses his grip on consciousness he hears a rasping voice—

“I see you’ve made a killer after all, Dr. O'Deorain.”

 

* * *

 

He wakes, flat on his back, strapped to a table. He pulls at the straps on reflex, feels the material flex, hears metal groan.

“Stop that!”

His handler’s voice arrests his movement almost before he understands his words. Zero Nineteen looks up at him. He’s glaring. It’s a first.

“You disappointed me. Embarrassed me, Zero Nineteen.”

He only then realizes there is something encircling his head. He feels a powerful wave of revulsion, the need to _get it off_ , warring with his desire to follow orders.

The tingling of his extremities starts again, but this time there is a sensation of weight. Of enormity. Like there’s something in the room occupying even the space he needs to breathe.

He feels anger, but it is not his anger. It’s disorienting.

Then an electrical humming starts, and he loses the ability to contemplate anything but the current running through his skull.

“Mesh is holding.”

“Vitals good. No, wait—”

He sees something behind his eyelids—

_His face hazy, like seeing a reflection in a foggy mirror, but his voice is clear._

_“Baby, I’m the luckiest man alive.”_

_Then he leans down and_ —

“What is that?”

“Stop, stop! He’s seizing!”

 

* * *

 

He wakes again, feeling calm. His handler is smiling at him. His handler, who he trusts. Who he obeys.

“What is you designation?”

“Subject 3-019”

“Very good.”

His handler is smiling, but there’s something wrong. That expression, which should bring calm, is now stirring nearly the opposite.

That buzzing under his skin is back, along with a memory—

_Fingers wrapped around someone’s neck, and a voice that had cut him to the core. His handler's voice._

He doesn’t let the unease show, but for the first time he thinks maybe he doesn’t trust that smile.

 

* * *

 

“You’ll start field work soon.”

Zero Nineteen doesn’t react to this statement. He understands all the words on their own, but precisely what his handler means is unclear. But then, it also doesn’t matter.

They are in a gun range. Shortly before being brought here, Zero Nineteen was fitted with a neurally integrated multilayer alloy armor. It is like a second skin, connected to the row of electrodes running down his spine. It moves with him as effortlessly as his skin, and sits almost as close.

His handler hands him a pistol.

He doesn’t remember ever holding one before, but he knows exactly what to do.

Effortlessly, he puts every round in the magazine through the ten ring.

He repeats the performance with a carbine, a rifle, and, lastly, a bow.

 

* * *

 

This is how he returns to the world: by snuffing out lives under cover of darkness.

If there is a pattern, he doesn't even know to care. He is aimed at a target and set loose, over and over. Sometimes there is the added twist of needing to bring something back, but it is, in aggregate, little more than killing.

A double agent, in some frozen place, their neck snapped and body dumped in a pile of dirty snow.

An omnic activist, far out in the desert where the sunlight is plentiful but the ears and antennas to receive their cries for help are few.

A high ranking cartel member, high up in a penthouse and surrounded by her bodyguards, shot with an arrow she never saw coming.

It is easy. Absurdly easy.

It is also hard. He can be alone for hours or days, waiting for the right time. In the moments his surroundings are quiet, his mind is full of sound, his body full of that ache, his chest full of that ravenous hollowness.

He is following orders. It should be enough.

And yet.

 

* * *

 

The mission is one of his less complex tasks. His target resides in a residential building. No resistance is expected.

And so far, no resistance has been encountered. This is a quiet neighborhood, and in the dead of night no one is searching for someone in the shadows. Zero Nineteen looks up the side of the building, a structure showing its age with cracked brick and rusting iron grates over the windows. He sees the particular window that had been designated as his primary entry point. It’s two stories up, but there’s a path that could be cut with ledges and missing bricks.

He rolls his shoulders and lays a hand on a ledge, ready to start, but a chill winds its way up his spine and his guts clench. He tries to ignore it, but when one of his feet leaves the ground the cold feelings expands into a dizzying nausea and he staggers back.

Bad. This way is bad.

These feelings are never wrong. He shouldn’t have ignored it.The doctors never test it, never ask about it, but surely it must be one of his functions, this intuition that tells him when to change the plan.

He retreats, goes to the secondary ingress point, and the feelings fade. He’s able to scale up to a window. It’s locked, but with a little application of force, the lock sheers off and the sash slides up.

He slips inside into a small, haphazardly furnished apartment. All the lights are out, but he has no trouble seeing. The layout is essentially like his briefing—the floorplan is exactly the same but the furniture is crammed in a strange way. While he was meant to enter through the bedroom, this living area is only a little worse. He draws a long knife—quieter than any projectile—and creeps along one wall.

There’s no one patrolling the apartment. He’s able to slip into the bedroom, where his target should be sleeping. Where he _is_ sleeping.

But he’s not alone.

There’s a second man in the bed, tucked up against the target, arms and legs in a careless sprawl on top of him. A lover perhaps? He steps closer, spies a ring on the second man’s finger. A husband.

The husband has broad shoulders, but they’re clearly the product of vanity and not true working muscle. His hair seems to be a chestnut color and several centimeters long. It must fall over his eyes sometimes. He wonders what color those eyes must be. For no reason at all, he pictures them a warm brown. He has a strong nose, broad jaw, but he’d look better with a beard.

Zero Nineteen discards those assessments. They’re of no value to the task at hand. He replaces the knife with a pistol shaped injector. It contains more than enough neurotoxin for two people. Collateral damage is acceptable so long as the target dies. Certainly is it preferred to discovery. Zero Nineteen stares down at the pair, both utterly oblivious to his presence. His focus should be on his target, but his eyes keep drifting to the husband. A strange kind of pain blooms in his chest. His eyes water with it. The sight of this man is like a knife between his ribs, but he finds he doesn't want to look away. He brushes his hand down his armor, expecting to find something, but his hand comes back clean. He is not wounded. He can continue.

His handler might not care about collateral damage, but it’s not necessary now. He injects his target with the neurotoxin, listens to the sigh of his last breath, and then slips back out into the living space, leaving no trace of his presence but the corpse.

The husband sleeps on, unaware.

 

* * *

 

“Status?”

“Mission successful.”

“Excellent, anything else to report?”

Zero Nineteen considers the strange pain seeing the target’s husband had caused. The way the sight of him felt right even if the details were wrong. The way the ache of knowing how he will wake in a few hours lingers.

Then he remembers the single time he’d done the wrong thing, when he attacked _that_ man. The thing his handler had done. This might also be wrong. So he says nothing, instead meeting his handler’s eyes and shaking his head.

“Very good. Strap in, prepare for departure.”

Zero Nineteen sits down in his designated seat, pulls the harness around himself. The motion is familiar and automatic. His handler checks the straps, then goes to the front of the plane to strap himself down.

The aircraft hums as anti-grav pads activate, pushing them aloft but vibrating the whole craft. When the rear engines fire, it lurches forward, old fashioned thrust and lift driving it.

The flight back will be long, and Zero Nineteen has been operating for nearly twenty hours. He has not been told to sleep, but his body doesn’t care. He slips under and _—_

_Bright sunlight. Salt breeze in his hair. The ghost of smoke in his nose. Weight in his lap._

_He plucks the broad-brimmed hat off the head in his lap, sets it aside on the sparse grass. The man’s face is slack with sleep, the ease of rest having smoothed away some of the lines. To touch him would be to wake him, and that seems like a shame, so he just looks._

_—_ jolts awake when turbulence shakes the plane.

The pain is back. He lifts his hand to check his chest again, looking for the source. There is, still, nothing.

He looks toward his handler, afraid he’d seen, but he is standing in the cockpit, talking with the pilots.

“I don’t know who he’s working with, but that Westworld looking motherfucker _shredded_ Ridgeway’s team last month.”

“Good thing you’re working on a shiny new weapon for us.”

“He’s experimental.”

“He can be a martian for all I care, man. I owe McCree money.”

 

* * *

 

The next mission isn’t an assassination. He’s been designated force specialist and attached to a larger unit. This is the first time he’ll be working within a team, as opposed to alone.

Zero Nineteen’s handler is on edge on the transport, but Zero Nineteen feels no different. He stares at the wall on the far side of the troop compartment, and listens to the noise inside his skull. It feels heavy today. Like there’s a weight planted on the inside of his sternum.

That ache is only one of many.

When the transport finally touches down, he exits with the rest of the squad. They give him more space than they give each other, shying away. He feels no particular way about this. His handler sticks nearer to him, close but not so close that he will impede Zero Nineteen drawing the string on his bow. It isn’t the first time he’s been outfitted with this weapon, and it feels right every time. Easy in a way firearms are not.

They only make it a few hundred meters before a feeling like falling into cold water shocks Zero Nineteen, and he drops low, dragging his handler with him. His handler flails, knocking his mask off, as Zero Nineteen covers him with his own body. A shot rings out just instants after they hit the ground, penetrating the skull of a soldier to his left. The squad scatters for cover, and he drags his handler away. Voices crackles over the comm.

“It’s McCree!”

“Where’s that fucking SEP knockoff?”

“Kill the hostile!” Zero Nineteen’s handler shouts.

So Zero Nineteen goes. He sees a flash of red disappear, but instead of following directly, he seeks higher ground. It is nothing to scale the nearest building, the force amps in his armor propelling him up to a balcony on the second floor. Clambering onto the roof is no challenge from there.

He runs across the roof, feet pounding and kicking up debris, then makes the jump over an alley onto the next building. He lands, rolls, and pops back up to keep running, just in time to see the person in red duck into an alley. The rest of the squad is lagging behind, but they’ll be able to catch up if Zero Nineteen cuts off the target’s escape.

His target is pressed against the wall of one the buildings, looking out the mouth of the alley. The man’s weapon is drawn, but he’s not moving to an advantageous position to intercept the squad. Perhaps he’s hoping to be overlooked.

He doesn’t notice Zero Nineteen lurking overhead at all.

Silent as a shadow, Zero Nineteen descends to the pavement. He pulls an arrow out of his quiver and notches, then draws his bowstring back.

Zero Nineteen should fire. His orders weigh heavy on his mind, unequivocal. But his fingers don’t loose the arrow. Because this close, he can see the lines of his target’s face, the way he holds himself, and he remembers—

 _Staring down at a handsome face in the bright sunshine_.

He pulls a little harder on the string, and the weapon creaks.

His target’s shoulders hitch, then he spins, leveling his pistol at Zero Nineteen’s center of mass. Zero Nineteen braces for the impact of his bullet, but instead of firing, his arm drops to his side. His target stares, eyes wide and mouth gaping, almost as if he’d been struck. As if he’s in pain.

How is he already in pain? Zero Nineteen hasn’t yet fired.

No one has ever looked at Zero Nineteen with this mixture of hurt and shock. The weight of it is uncomfortable, and Zero Nineteen feels the inexplicable urge to try to shrug it away.

His target’s eyes start to water. His free hand rises to his mouth. He doesn't stop staring. His shoulders start to shake, and then his breathing becomes loud and shuddery. Pain, he is in obvious pain, but there is no wound Zero Nineteen can see.

Zero Nineteen relaxes his pull on the bowstring. It feels unnatural to point a weapon at this man, more unnatural than disobeying an order. His target make a soft, choking noise, like he’s drowning where he stands. A sympathetic wave of pain echos through his own chest. But the humming in his skull starts again, this time bringing a warmth, heavy and thick, that flows down his spine from a place at the bottom of his skull.

 _Good_. He is good. His intuition is sure.

He takes a step closer, as if compelled. He wants—wants—

He doesn’t know.

But he does know that he hates this man’s pain. That it hurts him in kind. He has his orders, but they feel utterly inconsequential now.

“Hanzo?” his target chokes out.

Zero Nineteen’s guts clench at that word. His head pounds. Those two little syllables are like needles full of battery acid, jammed directly into his skull. He drops his weapon so he can press his hands to his head, trying to hold it together as it threatens to burst apart.

There are suddenly hands over his, one warm and one not. He looks up into a pair of wet, brown eyes. This man, the target he was ordered to kill, he is weeping and holding him.

Zero Nineteen doesn’t know what to do.

So he does nothing at all.

“It’s me, I’m here. You’re gonna be okay, you’ll be okay, I swear you’ll be okay.” He has an accent, pronounced but intelligible. It soothes something in Zero Nineteen. It sounds _right_.

Right like his handler makes him feel right. No, _more_. There is no fear, no uncertainty at all in him, looking at this face, listening to this voice. There is only the clarity he knows from orders.

And, beyond that, there is a warmth that fills up the hollowness in his chest.

This man fills him full to bursting.

So he does, actually, know what to do. Follow the feeling. Obey this man instead.

“Zero Nineteen!” his handler’s voice, angry.

Then, the sound of gunfire.

The man, his target, gasps, staggers into Zero Nineteen with a soft groan. He’s been shot. Zero Nineteen holds him up as a new feeling, similar to hate, but hotter, stronger, tears through him like a lightning strike.

Rage. He feels rage.

And it is burning him alive.

He pulls away from the man and charges toward the knot of soldiers. Towards his former, as of that shot, handler. His handler opens his mouth, about to do that _thing_ , but Zero Nineteen collides with him, shoulder first, slamming him into the nearby building. The impact with the brickwork stuns him, and Zero Nineteen steals his weapon to fire a shot directly into his brainpan. He feels a round hit him in the back, but his armor absorbs the blow. He tosses the corpse at the the others to distract them, then charges behind it.

They barely have time to scream before Zero Nineteen dispatches them with his stolen weapon.

This is not the first time he’s standing among people he’s made into corpses, but this is the only time he’s defied orders to do it. He thinks, perhaps, he should be afraid.

He isn’t.

He turns back toward the man. He fell to the ground, but he’s staring up at Zero Nineteen. Alive, he is still alive, but there is blood pooling beneath him. If he doesn’t get medical care soon, he will die, and Zero Nineteen cannot let that happen. But he is only a weapon, fit to end lives, not save them, and a helpless panic starts to build.

Zero Nineteen staggers towards him, hands outstretched. His target, no, former target, lifts his own, catches one, and presses it to his face. Zero Nineteen sinks to his knees beside him.

“I thought I’d lost you, darlin’.” He kisses Zero Nineteen’s palm, then says. “I’ve been hit.”

Of course. He didn’t come alone. He has his own squad.

“I think I can come to y’all.” His eyebrows arch up in question. Zero Nineteen nods. “Yeah, I’m comin’.”

“Where?” Zero Nineteen asks as he scoops the man into his arms. The man groans in lieu of answering, and Zero Nineteen has to ask again.

“North, rest of the team is north.”

With the man pressed into his chest—and his blood dripping down them both—Zero Nineteen runs. He’s unwieldy, but Zero Nineteen hardly notices the weight of him. The man gives him directions, but as they go his voice begins slurring, little by little. He’s dying by millimeters, and all Zero Nineteen can do is run.

Then, finally, Zero Nineteen turns a corner and comes face to face with a transport. There’s a small fire team standing around the personnel entrance.

“Don’t shoot!” the man shouts. His voice is shaky, but it carries.

In any case, they don’t seem inclined to fire. They’re all staring, much like the man had.

“Bleeding,” Zero Nineteen says. “He’s bleeding.”

That spurs them all into motion. A woman in white _—_ the insignia on her armor marking her as a medic _—_ starts toward him while others shout for him to board their transport. He complies, and the woman activates her equipment. A beam of golden light arcs from it to the man, and he moans, low and relieved.

Zero Nineteen marches up the ramp and into a troop compartment. It’s strangely arrayed, but there is a low table, clearly meant for the wounded. He sets the man down, but before he can move away, the man reaches out and grabs his forearm in a titanium grip. Holds him close.

“Jesse—” the medic starts.

“No!” he growls. “I’m not lettin’ him out of my sight.”

“I need to work,” she says with authority.

His grip briefly tightens and a look of utter agony passes over his face, but both fade. He looks Zero Nineteen in the eyes with a wild intensity and says,

“Listen to ‘em. Let ‘em help you, all right?”

Zero Nineteen nods. Then he’s bullied away by the medic.

Without the man in his arms, the rest of the fireteam feels free to level weapons at him. He raises his hands and begins calculating a way to incapacitate them all if need be.

One _—_ at first Zero Nineteen marked him as an omnic, but he pulls off the faceplate of his helmet and reveals a human face _—_ lowers his sword and takes a step closer.

“Hanzo?”

Zero Nineteen winces. That word again. It still hurts. Why do they keep saying it?

“We don’t have time for this,” someone says, someone behind him. As he turns to face this new person, he feels an impact on his neck, then something cold spread under his skin.

He hears the not-omnic snarl “Captain Amari!” and then darkness overtakes him.

 

* * *

 

Consciousness comes slowly. His body feels heavy, his head thick. He lies still, waiting for someone to come and tell him what to do next. Someone always comes.

But time drags on, and no one tells him anything. His throat begins to burn with thirst, his stomach churn with hunger, but still no one comes. Finally, he pushes himself upright.

His equipment is gone. It’s not the first time he’s woken without it, but it’s the first time it’s been replaced with thin, light blue clothes. They’re loose and soft, and that’s strange in and of itself.

He assesses his surroundings. He’s in an almost bare room, with only a bed for furniture. There is a small stall built out from the wall, and he can see a toilet, sink, and shower inside. As for exits, there’s only one door out, and only a single high window too small for him to fit through. A single screen inset in the wall is all that could pass for decoration.

“Hello again, Agent Shimada,” says a disembodied voice. “I am going to alert someone you have woken. Is there anything you require?”

Zero Nineteen opens his mouth, but hesitates before speaking. He doesn’t see after his own maintenance. Is this some kind of test?

He decides it is.

“Water. Food.”

“Certainly.”

More time passes. He stays sitting where he is. None of this feels right, except _—_

Except for that man. His so-called target. He filled that wanting space in his chest, satisfied his strange intuition. Following him was right.

So, this man must also be his handler. Maybe his proper handler all along. Had he been stolen away?

If it matters, then he will tell him.

Whenever he comes. A knot of anxiety forms low in Zero Nineteen’s stomach. What if he doesn’t come?

No.

He will.

He _must_.

A sensation not unlike a cold breeze creeps along Zero Nineteen's skin, stronger on the side facing the door. Something rises within him to answer, a swelling, roiling feeling that buffets against the inside of his skin. It tugs him towards the door, wanting and desperate.

Then one word, clear but voiceless, rises in his mind, but somehow he knows it's not for him.

 _Wait_.

And then it all stops.

Zero Nineteen's hand had lifted on its own, reaching, but as the door slides into the wall he drops it back to his side. He watches with the entirety of his attention as someone comes through.

It’s the not-omnic. He’s wearing loose clothes instead of armor, his nose and mouth are covered by a smooth metal mask. He’s got a shock of short hair, pale blue but black at the roots, and what little of his face that can be seen seems to carry burn scars. He’s holding a tray with a cup, bowl, and utensils.

“I’m going to come in now,” he says. There’s no interrogative, so Zero Nineteen doesn’t respond. The man crosses the threshold but hesitates before coming closer. He looks around the room, then sets the tray on the foot of the bed.

The cup holds water, the bowl rice with an egg. The only utensils are a pair of chopsticks, and though Zero Nineteen can’t remember ever having used them they fit naturally in his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the man takes off the mask and slip it into the pocket of his sweatshirt. He frowns, but in a way Zero Nineteen has never seen before. It’s not thoughtful or disappointed, but something else. Zero Nineteen eats instead of puzzling it out.

The food disappears far too quickly, and leaves him still feeling hungry. The water is, at least, enough to quench his thirst. He sets the chopsticks down on the tray and turns toward the man, who watched him the entire time.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks. His voice is soft, but with a rasp. Thin sounding. Strained.

“No.”

He presses his lips together. He didn’t like that answer, but it’s accurate. Zero Nineteen had never seen him before the moments on the transport.

“Do you know who you are?”

“Research Subject 3-019 in the Cybernetically Augmented Intensive Neuro-musculoskeletal Conditioning Program.”

“ _No_ ,” the man snaps. “That’s not _who_ you are.”

Zero Nineteen doesn’t know how to respond. That _is_ his designation. It has always been that.

This man must simply be ignorant.

“Where is my handler?” he asks. “I must report to my handler after a deployment.”

The man rubs his cheek with his left hand, then runs it over his hair a few times. Mutters _you've always got to make things so fucking hard_. It’s no answer to Zero Nineteen’s question. He’s never had to ask a question like that before, but this man clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“Hanzo—” That word again. Why do these people keep saying it? “You don’t have a—a handler anymore. You’re back at Gibraltar. You’re safe.”

“I must make a report to my handler. You are interfering. Tell me where he is.”

“You don’t have a handler.”

“All functioning research assets have handlers.”

“You are not a,” the man’s lips curl up in distaste, “ _research asset_.” Of course he is. What else would he be? “You’re a person. _My brother_.”

That assertion doesn’t make sense, so Zero Nineteen discards it. A disquieting thought curls up in the back of his mind—what if he'd died? What if he'd been too late?

“Is my handler still alive?”

The man hesitates a long moment before speaking.

“You mean Jesse, don't you? Yeah, Jesse's okay.” He stops to swallow. “You have to understand, Hanzo, he's not your handler, or whatever you think he is. He's—well, Jesse will explain, I guess.”

Relief soothes him. He didn’t fail.

“We thought we’d lost you. I didn’t—if I’d—” his voice dies for a moment. “Do you really not remember?”

Zero Nineteen shakes his head.

A strange expression passes over the man’s face, and he sighs. He comes close enough to pick up the tray and dishes, then steps away again.

“Is there anything else you need?” the man says, sounding strangely subdued.

“I need my handler.”

“Yes, yes, I heard you. Anything else?”

Zero Nineteen says nothing.

The man leaves.

 

* * *

 

More time passes. His handler doesn’t come.

Without the constant activity, he’s acutely aware of the way he aches. He goes back to the bed, lays down. It helps a little.

The screen turns on, showing him the faces of more people he doesn’t know. They tell him useless things. The man’s _—_ his handler’s _—_ most recent order sits heavily in his mind. _Listen to them._ But how can he do that when they don’t _tell_ him anything.

He can only think to ask for his handler. His wears his voice thin with the repetition. He can’t ever recall having to speak so much before.

It occurs to him that the man—the one who claimed to be his brother, as if a weapon could have such a thing—could have been lying. His handler had been designated as _his_ target, it's possible, no _likely_ , that he is still under threat. He was clearly disoriented when they made it to the transport, he could have mistaken an enemy squad for his own.

And he was wounded. Completely at their mercy.

This is unacceptable.

Zero Nineteen goes to the door. It’s smooth, but there’s a keypad next to the wall. He tries a few buttons at random, but they do nothing.

“Agent Shimada, is there something you need?”

He ignores the voice in favor of running his hands around the frame, looking for a weak point. The metal extends into tracks above and below, but it’s only flush with the jamb on the left side.

He steps back, plants one foot, and drives the other into the door near the jamb. The metal caves slightly under his heel, and the whole door rattles loudly in its housing.

“Agent Shimada, stop. You could hurt yourself. I am notifying the others.”

He continues. The door warps further, bending outward. Once he gets a gap large enough for his hand, he can try to force it back down the track. That is, if he doesn’t break it down entirely beforehand.

Before he can do that, however, he hears a voice.

“Hey! _Hey!_ Stop before you get yourself stuck in there.”

He knows that voice. He stops. The door slides shakily back, getting stuck where he’d bowed it, but it’s enough for Zero Nineteen to see who’s on the other side.

It’s him.


	3. McCree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It doesn't feel real

_Agent Shimada is attempting to escape room M-334_.

Jesse jerks upright, instantly awake. He recognizes Athena’s warning tone, but her words don’t make sense. He takes in his surroundings—Watchpoint medbay, early in the day—as he struggles to remember why he’s here. His mind only offers up a foggy impression of the end of the last mission. They’d gone to intercept a Talon operation, of that’s he’s sure, but then—

Could _he_ have really been there?

Jesse remembers the feeling of reality slipping sideways as his mind struggled to understand his eyes, feels something like it now. The possibility that the whole encounter was just some hopeful fiction spun by blood loss and painkillers, that the Shimada in room 334 is, unfathomably, _Genji_ , paralyses him. Then Athena repeats her warning and that snaps him into motion. He has to know, _now_.

Jesse pulls himself free of all the wires tethering him to a bank of sensors and staggers out of the bed toward the door. He wrenches it open with far too much force, then runs down the hall toward the still-decommissioned third wing of medbay.

Jesse doesn’t need to see the number stenciled over the door to know which is the right room, not when one door is bowing out into the hall. He hears a loud _thud,_ and the door rattles in place. It’s about to pop out of the track, and if it does there’s a fair chance it will simply wedge in place and whoever is on the other side will be stuck until someone gets a torch to cut through. There’s another _thud_ and the door bows out a little more.

“Hey! _Hey_! Stop before you get yourself stuck in there,” Jesse shouts.

The silence of the next few second is crushing, but it’s enough for Jesse to believe that he stopped. It’s also enough for a hysteria to start to build somewhere between his lungs, but he swallows it down and addresses Athena.

“Athena, please let me in.” Jesse’s amazed at how steady his voice sounds.

The door slides back, protesting as it goes, and reveals—

Hanzo.

Jesse stares. He can’t help it. The bottom of his world is falling out all over again, because Hanzo is _here_ , right in front of him, breathing and standing and _alive_. For months, Jesse had held out hope for this exact thing, and then he gave it up. Spent the months after trying to bury his grief, letting the pressure of work and anger compress it into something hard and sharp and very much like purpose. Now it’s shattering, a spray of razor edged shards catching and tearing at the very heart of him. Hanzo has been alive, all this time, and Jesse had given up on him. Christ, how could he have given up on him?  How could he have let _this_ happen to someone he loves?

Hanzo looks shocked for the briefest of moments, then perhaps relieved, but his expression quickly settles into nothing at all. He steps back into the center of the room, straightens into something like attention. The rigid posture isn’t so unusual, but there’s something about the way he’s standing that’s just _off_. Hanzo doesn’t stand that way.

Except he does now.

The brutally analytical part of Jesse tells him Hanzo probably does a lot different now. That the overlap of things he was and things he is might be vanishingly small. Jesse stops that thought, covers over it like paint on a rotting board, because he _cannot_ see it through and stay sane. Instead, Jesse takes a halting step forward, the tile under his bare feet freezing, lets himself be drawn by a magnetism that in a different life had sent him tumbling into bed with this man. Hanzo doesn’t react. Jesse takes another step. In the field, Hanzo had looked at him with something like recognition, but now there’s nothing on his face but those awful scars. He takes one more step, stopping just inside Hanzo’s space. Hanzo is still staring through him.

Jesse reaches out, takes Hanzo’s hand between his own, to prove to himself that Hanzo is really here. Hanzo’s hand is warm and heavy, rough in the places Jesse remembers, but—

There is a horror story carved into Hanzo’s skin, and Jesse’s imagination conjures up details as his eyes wander along the pale lines of scar tissue. They wind across his skull, just peeking out through his close cropped hair, terminating at his temples only to reappear around eyes that catch the light just wrong. They start again just below his neck, following the edges of major muscles until they vanish under the scrubs he’s wearing only to emerge again to bifurcate a snarling dragon and split into five lines that run down all his fingers. The metal of contact pads glints under the overheard lights in a mockery of the jewelry he used to wear. Ragged, pink scars are all that’s left of piercings he was so happy to have.

Up close it’s like they flayed Hanzo open and sewed the skin shut around a whole lot of empty.

Jesse lifts his other hand to Hanzo’s cheek. At least they left him his beard. Jesse almost draws him in for a hug, but Hanzo’s almost imperceptible recoil when Jesse shifts his weight pulls him up short. As much as Jesse wants to wrap his arms around Hanzo and hold him so close nothing will ever be able to touch him again, he has to remember Hanzo isn’t himself right now. He might not welcome that, and it’s not the time for Jesse to be reaching for his own comfort.

Jesse lets his hand go and steps back, giving Hanzo a little space. Only then does Hanzo look at his face. It’s the same blank look, just aimed somewhere else, but something, maybe just rote familiarity, tells Jesse he’s waiting for something.

“Hey, Hanzo,” Jesse says. It feels feeble in the face of everything Jesse is feeling, but what words are there for a moment like this?

Hanzo flinches then, like he’s repulsed by the sound of his own name. That feels as heavy as a blow. Beyond the flinch, however, Hanzo doesn't respond, and Jesse feels as if he should have expected as much. He closes his eyes and gathers himself for a moment, then asks the question that brought him here.

“Why were you trying to break down the door?”

“I must find and report to my handler after deployment,” he says, voice so hoarse it’s raw, but his tone is unbelievably flat. Even dumb AI have more humanity in their canned responses.

“You don’t have a handler.” Jesse tries to sound firm.

“You are my handler,” Hanzo replies, with the barest flicker of unease breaking through into his tone.

“Honey, I’m—” but Jesse falters. Tries to weigh the wisdom of disabusing Hanzo of that notion with the reality of the dent in the door. This room might be able to contain most people, but whatever they’ve done to Hanzo has made him more than a match for it. Still, the thought of playing the role of someone who was complicit in whatever was done to Hanzo turns Jesse’s stomach.

“You ain’t gotta call me that.”

“How should I address you?”

“You always called me ‘Jesse’.”

“ _Jesse_ —” How could his name sound wrong in that mouth?  But it does. “I am ready to make my report.”

“Your report,” Jesse repeats, disbelieving.

They’re going to have to question him, Jesse realizes. There’s no one else to ask about what’s been done to him, _why_ it was done to him. It might be in Doc’s medbay instead of a Blackwatch interrogation room, and it might be over hot fucking cocoa, but that will be a thing that has to be done.

Jesse swallows. He knows who’ll probably have to do it.

“ _McCree!_ ” Doc shouts from somewhere behind him, equal parts wary and angry. Jesse whips around. She’s standing in the hall, on the other side of the threshold. He can tell just by looking at her she wants him out of there.

Jesse hears Hanzo inhale sharply and he starts to move, but Jesse lifts his arm, for all the good it might do. Hanzo, to his faint surprise, stops.

“He’s—” Hanzo starts, but he coughs.

“Bleeding through his dressings, I saw,” Doc finishes.  

Jesse hadn’t even noticed. No wonder Doc looks so mad.

“I gotta go with her.” Hanzo doesn’t react to that, but maybe that’s for the best. “We can do the—the report later, all right? For now, you gotta wait here and leave the door alone. Can you do that for me?”

Hanzo nods.

“Okay.” Jesse stops and runs his hand over his hair. “Okay, then.”

Jesse steps back into the hall. Athena shuts the door behind him.

Doc looks tired. She always looks a little tired, has for all the years Jesse has know her, but this is an acute kind of exhaustion. She blows out a long sigh and looks up at him. The steel behind her eyes is still there though, and that’s reassuring. She reaches out and takes his right arm with one hand, cool fingers circling his wrist, and squeezes once. He closes his eyes for just a second, tries to take her comfort and actually _feel_ it.

“I just—” he starts his apology, but she hold up a finger to stop him.

“Let me make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.”

Jesse parses out the exasperation in her tone, but also her forgiveness.  There’ll be no lecture about staying put in bed, he suspects. She tugs at him once then turns back toward the med bay.

When they turn the corner, Genji is there, sprinting toward them. He slows to a walk when he sees them, looking back and forth from Jesse to Doc.

“I heard Athena’s warning.” Genji’s wearing his respirator—he’d have needed it to run—and while it obscures his tone, it fails to truly mute the fear in his voice. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah. Damn near took the door down though.”

Genji looks in the direction of Hanzo’s _room_. Jesse infers a frown from the tilt of his eyebrows and the upward creep of his shoulders.

“He was,” Genji pauses, visibly fumbling for a word, “ _calm_ when I left him.”

“And I think he’s calm now.”

Genji hums, a low skeptical noise, still looking down the hallway. Jesse thinks he should say something, should have words to comfort his friend, but he can’t find them. Genji wears his grief differently than he used to, and Jesse had been too consumed with his own to learn the nuances. It was easier to bury himself in the mountain of work chasing Talon presented, let things go unsaid, than it was to confront their loss.

“Come, McCree,” Doc says when the quiet begins to stretch.

Jesse claps Genji on the shoulder in lieu of anything meaningful and follows her. He doesn’t see where Genji goes, whether towards his brother or away, but Jesse trusts him whichever way he goes.

Doc leads him back to the room he woke up in. He catches the edge of her grimace as she sees the mess he left, and he still has it in him to feel abashed. She shakes her head, mostly to herself, and motions for him to turn. The hum that follows is entirely displeased.

“Let’s get those changed,” she says, waving vaguely at the bed. Jesse’s done this song and dance enough times to know where he’s supposed to be. He lays down, rolls onto his front, and tugs his shirt up over his head, wincing a little as his back twinges. Without the adrenaline, he can feel just how fixed up he isn’t. He reaches back to get a feel for the damage—two patches of gauze, low on his back and faintly damp. He’s perversely thankful he was hit there; both shots missed the tattoos. If they’d been hit who knows when he’d be able to have them fixed, if he even could. Only the Archangel and the Lady are still serving to honor his losses, hopefully for a long while yet, but he’d hate to have any of them damaged.

“That was very stupid,” Doc says as she pulls on a pair of nitrile gloves.

“I’m not gonna apologize for goin’ to check on him,” Jesse huffs.

“That was merely reckless, and not what I was talking about. It was stupid to go running off on your own. What if you’d been killed?”

“I wasn’t. And it got him back.”

For a moment the only sound is the air return and her opening packages of biotic dressings.

“How long have we known each other, McCree?” Her tone could be construed as conversational. Could be.

“A damn long time.”

“ _A damn long time_ ,” she repeats. “So do not think you can convince me you had any inkling he would have been there.”

She’s right. Jesse didn’t. He just saw a chance to hit back, so he took it like he has so many others these last months.

Doc falls quiet as she peels off the old dressings and applies new ones. Her practiced hands move quickly, and before he can even get settled, she’s smoothing down the second one. Rather than lift her hands away though, her fingers move up and tap the center of his back. He can feel her question in the air but she doesn’t voice it, and Jesse’s never been more grateful to her in his life.

She sighs and gathers up the trash, taking the shirt he’d been wearing too. Jesse pushes himself upright again and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Doc pulls another shirt out of a drawer and hands it to him.

“I thought for a long while that we would lose you too. That in a way, we already had.” She reaches out, a little hesitant, and places her hand on his shoulder. “I have far too few old friends, Jesse McCree. Don’t deprive me of another.”

Jesse presses his hand over hers.

“I think I can do that.”

“See that you do.” She takes a deep breath and moves her hand. “No heavy lifting until those come off. No picking at them in the shower either,” she says, back to her usual professional tone.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.”

She narrows her eyes in undisguised suspicion, but then her expression shifts again to something more somber. “I will need to evaluate Hanzo.”

“Better sooner than later?”

“Well, yes, but we could—”

“No. Sooner you know the sooner you can do somethin’.”

“All right. Let me know when you’re ready.”

 

* * *

 

Jesse only takes enough time to find new clothes and someone to act as backup. Genji probably couldn’t have been kept away, but Morrison volunteered to go as well. Jesse hopes neither of them are necessary, but they also have to balance Doc’s safety. She’s no pushover, but she’s never had even a tenth of Hanzo’s CQC training.

“You sure about going in there by yourself?” Morrison asks.

Jesse eyes the bugle in the steel again. Hanzo did that with nothing but bare feet. It’s a preposterous amount of force, but he stopped the moment Jesse asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright.”

Morrison crossed his arms and huffs, but he doesn’t protest anymore than that. Genji remains silent, his expression hidden behind his respirator and his posture giving nothing away. Jesse takes a deep breath.

“Athena?”

The doors slides open. Hanzo is still standing in the center of the room, right where Jesse had left him. That makes Jesse pause, makes something cold and ugly clench deep in his belly. Did Hanzo think he wasn’t allowed to sit?

The door slides shut behind Jesse with a groan, and only once it has does Jesse step forward. Hanzo looks through him, same as before. If Jesse didn’t know better he’d almost assume Hanzo didn’t notice anyone entered the room.

“Hey, darlin’.” Jesse says, fumbling for some semblance of normalcy, but Hanzo doesn’t react at all to the endearment. “How about you sit down there on the bed?”

Hanzo turns and goes to the bed, almost marching. If he feels any way about that, it doesn’t show on his face. Jesse clenches his jaw when Hanzo’s back is turned swallows down the bile that’s building in his throat.

It feels wrong to be standing, so Jesse joins him on the bed. He sits further away than he wants to, but still probably too close. Hanzo doesn’t turn to look at him.

“We gotta get you checked over. That okay?”

“Am I not operational?” he rasps. He still sounds like he’d been gargling broken glass.

“No,” by some miracle his voice doesn't break on the word. There's a flicker of something in Hanzo’s face, confusion perhaps, but it’s gone before Jesse can be sure. “We don’t know what they did to you.”

“What are my orders?” Hanzo asks.

“Jesus,” Jesse murmurs. He only just stops himself from bringing his hand up to his face. “I’m gonna take you for a medical evaluation. Let the doctor examine you and mind what she says.” He hates that he has to say it like an order, that he has to talk to Hanzo this way. “Unless it hurts. I want you to tell us if something hurts.”

Jesse pushes himself up to tell the others they’re ready. He hopes, for Doc’s sake, he stays this calm and this goes smooth.

“I—”

Jesse stops, spins back on his heel. Hanzo is staring at him, actually meeting his gaze, wide eyed and almost afraid.

“It hurts. It hurts right now.”

Fear ticks up his heartbeat, if they've done something or neglected something—

“Where?”

“Everywhere,” Hanzo says softly, with genuine fear.

“ _Christ Jesus_. Lay down!” Hanzo drops back flat so quickly it might have hurt even with the mattress. “When’d it start?”

“I don’t know. It always hurts.”

“ _hose motherfuckers_ ,” he hisses through gritted teeth. How _dare_ they.

Hanzo looks up at him from the bed with an expression close to panic. As if he is afraid of Jesse’s anger. The first thing he’s expressed since being here, since being somewhere safe, is _fear_ , probably of Jesse, for admitting he’s hurting, and for as long as he lives Jesse with never forgive Talon for this.

“Sit tight,” Jesse murmurs, trying to regain his grip on his composure. He can’t be scaring Hanzo on top of everything else. “We’ll fix this, I swear.”

Jesse starts kicking up the brakes on the bed. This room might not have any other piece of medbay equipment, but this bed will still roll. It’s possible there’s something very wrong, that Hanzo was hurt or they’ve neglected something, and Jesse doesn't dare risk aggravated it by making Hanzo walk.

“Athena, you hear all that? Tell Doc to get ready _now_ ,” Jesse shouts into the air.

“Acknowledged, Agent McCree.”

The door slides back, with Genji standing on the other side, posture wary.

“Jesse?” Genji leans past the threshold into the room. “Why are you shouting?”

“Help me roll this outta here.”

“McCree, are you sure?” Morrison says, wary.

“He said he was in pain, so yeah, I’m fuckin’ sure,” Jesse snarls, swinging the bed around. Genji, at least, is listening to him, taking the foot of the bed and guiding it through the door.

There is a tiny part of Jesse that’s telling him that Morrison’s concern is well placed, that this could be some ruse to get loose in the Watchpoint, that he could be putting his sister, the Doc, the Captain, _everyone_ in danger. But the rest of him knows that this is _Hanzo_ , and he is hurting, and that he can’t stand it. He could have gotten out on his own if he’d wanted to, he proved that. Jesse believes, _knows_ , he’s not another Lacroix.  

Morrison, realizing he’s been overruled, goes ahead of them. Good. If he sticks with Doc, that’s both worries satisfied. Hanzo, for his part, lies still on the cot, and that’s its own kind of agony. When has Hanzo ever just gone along so easily?

Jesse tightens his grip and picks up the pace.

Doc is waiting for them outside of her exam rooms, waves them in. Morrison shoved the other bed into the hall already, so there’s plenty of space. Doc directs them to put the bed where she wants it, next to a bunch of equipment. Jesse kicks down the brakes once she’s happy. He starts to put his hand on Hanzo’s shoulder out of pure reflex, but he stops himself. He’s not sure if it would actually make Hanzo feel any better, and that uncertainty makes him shove his hand into his pocket instead.

“I know you might not remember me, but I’m a doctor and I’m here to help,” Doc starts, laying her _good doctor_ voice on thick. “Right McCree?”

“You can trust her,” Jesse says firmly. Hanzo’s eyes flick up to him, almost a question, like he isn’t sure how to respond. Jesse chew his bottom lip, fists his hands in his pockets. “You can say whatever you want.”

Hanzo nods, still looking unsure, but Jesse supposes that’s as good as they’ll get.

“Now, McCree said you were in pain. I can give you something to make it better, but I’d like to find the source. Will you let me?”

“Yes,” Hanzo says after some small hesitation.

“All right then.” Doc turns and takes an injector off a tray, and Hanzo tenses slightly but remains in place. “This is fairly mild, but it will leave you clear headed. If it doesn’t help, we can try something else.” She presses the injector against the skin of his bicep. “Slight pinch.” The injector discharges with a soft hiss and leaves a spot of blood that vanishes under a biotic swab. Doc steps back, out of Hanzo’s immediate reach, and sets the injector aside.

“It will be a few moments before that takes effect, but are you comfortable otherwise?”

Hanzo looks between Jesse and Doc, as if one of them has the proper answer. Jesse presses his lips together.

“Go on, tell her the truth.”

Hanzo opens his mouth, but no words come. He looks genuinely distressed, and it breaks Jesse’s heart.

“I am,” he says finally, an interrogative curl in his voice.

“Thank you for telling us,” Doc says, less out of her element than anyone else. “Now, I’m going to begin an examination. You may ask to stop at any time, but it would be best if you let me finish unless you’re experiencing discomfort. Do you understand?”

Hanzo nod, slow and unsure.

Doc has most of her portable imaging equipment in here, already set up. Set picks up her tablet and keys something in. She starts with x-rays, then takes a blood sample. Hanzo doesn’t seem bothered, and that’s Jesse’s only consolation. She has old images up next to the new ones, and even Jesse’s inexpert eye can tell the changes. There are flecks of white—something dense like metal—winding through Hanzo. Even his bones come up whiter.

“Please take your shirt off so I can examine these implants.”

Hanzo pulls his shirt over his head without any hesitation. The scars continue pretty much like Jesse expects, the lines on his forearms meeting the ones that disappeared under the collar of the shirt. One does catch Jesse’s eye, a knot of scar tissue under Hanzo’s ribs—the scar from a gunshot wound. Jesse would recognize it anywhere. It’s not one he had before. It could only be—

Jesse forces himself not to speculate. Not here.

Doc inspects the contact pads running down Hanzo’s spine. They’re intense, meant to connect something serious. Jesse’s never seen the like. Doc looks between the images she just took and Hanzo, looking unhappy.

“I’m going to need better scans,” Doc mumbles to herself, then “How is your pain?”

“Less.”

“Very good. Do you think you can walk?” Hanzo nods. “I’d like you to come with me then.” She’s looking at Hanzo, but really, she’s addressing everyone. Hanzo pushes himself upright, slides off the bed to the floor, then stands perfectly still. Morrison puts himself between Hanzo and Doc, not subtle but not particularly hostile either. Genji and Jesse flank Hanzo, thought he still seems perfectly passive.

Doc leads them down to where she has the permanent scanning equipment installed, a little room dominated by the CT scanner separated from the displays by panes of glass. Hanzo settles himself on the table with very little prompting, and that’s a strange sight. Hanzo never wanted to endure the fuss of actual diagnostics before. Had they put him in one of these often enough that they’d ingrained a routine, or just beaten something obsequious into him?

Doc sits down at the terminal and starts everything up. Jesse knows they’re in for a wait from personal experience, but he still steps up to the glass to keep watch. Genji settles in beside him. He's silent for only a moment before he tips his head toward Jesse and says,

“You know what’s odd?”

Jesse grunts, both an acknowledgement and invitation to continue.

“For as long as I can remember, he’s looked tired,” Genji murmurs. “But those dark circles are gone.” Jesse lifts his hand, drops it Genji’s shoulder. Genji leans a little into him. “What does that _mean_?”

“Dunno,” Jesse says, amazed by his own honesty. “Does it have to mean somethin’?”

Genji's shoulders slump.

“It definitely means this is all pretty fucked.”

“You’re tellin’ me, brother.”

 

* * *

 

Doc finished her work without incident. They take Hanzo back to his room, and this time Jesse makes sure to tell him he can sit or stand or do what he wants. He also reminds him Athena is there, and can answer any questions he might have.

He’s not sure if it took, but he hopes it did. It's all he can think to do for the moment.

Now he’s sitting across from Doc and her results with Genji. Her desk is lit up with macabre cross sections of anatomy, and it all has little meaning to Jesse.

“First, there’s good news. I think the pain he’s experiencing is due to inflammation around the muscle implants.”

“That’s _good_?” Genji asks.

“They must have—” she visibly hesitates, but powers through, “put him into the field too soon, but that can be dealt with easily.”

“Sounds like there’s a _but_ comin’,” Jesse mumbles.

Doc sighs, and pulls up some images. These are fairly similar, all things considered.

“These are Jack’s and Hanzo’s. Hanzo’s _alterations_ are more extensive, but there are striking similarities—the bone density, the muscle implants. I think they were trying to replicate and expand on the results from SEP. Or rather, that they did. Look.”

Doc pulls up more images, which could be anything to Jesse.

“There are taps into his spinal column. Winston and Torbjörn are looking at the armor he came in with, but I think it’s obvious these are meant to facilitate integration with an armor-based combat suite.” She cycles through more images. “He’s got retinal implants, pulmonary and cardiovascular enhancements, skeletal reinforcements.”

Jesse sits with that for a moment. That Talon’s trying to replicate SEP is one thing, that they used Hanzo to do it is another. Jesse has a solid idea of what the toll SEP took was. After all, he spent the better part of his adult life in the company of Gabriel Reyes. That Hanzo’s still drawing wind in the face of it is another miracle.

“There’s one more thing,” Doc says softly. She changes the images to something else—something that looks like a cross-section of a skull, if Jesse had to guess. “They did something to his brain. There’s damage to his memory centers, and something invasive is implanted deep in his brain tissue. I think,” she pauses, take a deep breath, “that this is how they brainwashed him.”

“What can you do about it?” Jesse asks.

“These lesions—Jesse, he might never be the person he was again.”

Genji makes soft, gut punched noise, but Jesse rejects that out of reflex. It’s unfathomable.

“He _knows_ me!”

“I’m not disputing that, and I’m not saying to give up. I’m only trying to be realistic about his prognosis. The physical differences—these I think I can manage. They are life altering, yes, but the truly dangerous period has already past. Jack's still with us after all. But you cannot expect that he will remember everything, that he will ever be exactly the man he was.”

Doc reaches across the desk, extends her hands. Genji takes one with his left. Jesse with his right. She squeezes tightly.

“You know I will help him however I can, and I know you’ll take care of him. He’s here, and he’s alive, and he has you both to help him. All is not lost.”

Jesse, for the life of him, can’t quite find it in him to believe her.

 

* * *

 

Jesse sent Fareeha down into the city for Hanzo’s favorite take out. The bowl of noodles smells savory and rich, and that smell is heavy with memories. Hanzo had tried for so long to find a place he liked, and he was ecstatic when he’d come across somewhere that could give him a taste of something familiar. They hadn't gone quite often enough to be recognized by the staff but had been there just enough that Jesse had memorized Hanzo’s order and could relay it to Fareeha.

Jesse also put a pair of e-rations on the tray, because if Hanzo really has enhancements equivalent to SEP, then he’ll have similar caloric requirements. Better safe than sorry.

Jesse hopes that it’s enough to soften what will essentially be an interrogation. They need to know anything Hanzo can tell them to supplement what Doc’s already found. It’s a cold comfort that Hanzo probably won’t mind answering Jesse’s questions.

Jesse knocks on the door before asking Athena to open it. It only seems right. This time, Hanzo is at least sitting on the bed.

“Brought you some dinner,” Jesse says, trying to sound friendly. Hanzo looks at him this time, but his expression gives nothing away. Jesse forces a smile and sets the tray on the bed. There’s nowhere else to sit, so Jesse leans against the wall.

Hanzo starts with the rations, and that hurts in a way Jesse wasn’t expecting. He grits his teeth instead of saying anything. Hanzo does move on to the noodles, though he seems to regard them with no more enthusiasm than the rations. He sets the chopsticks aside before the bowl is quite empty, apparently done.

“Not hungry anymore?” Jesse asks, just to be sure. Hanzo shakes his head. “What did you think of the food?”

Hanzo frowns, confused. He looks between the tray and Jesse, and Jesse regrets the question.

“It is...correct?” Hanzo says, sounding remarkably unsure. His voice, at least, is stronger than it was.

“Okay.” Jesse chews the inside of his cheek and longs for a smoke. He should have expected as much, honestly. “That’s fine.”

Jesse sighs. He didn’t only come here to give Hanzo dinner, as much as he wishes he had.

“I want to talk a little bit about what where you’ve been and what they did, okay? And the more about you, the better. That way we can help you.”

Hanzo nods, though it’s only after a moment of consideration that he begins talking.

“I was commissioned less than a year ago as a weapon—”

Jesse thinks of himself as having a pretty strong stomach, but he feels ill as Hanzo talks. Maybe it’s the way Hanzo sounds detached. Maybe it’s because this happened to someone he loves. Either way, it takes every ounce of Jesse’s self control to stay put, to listen instead of interrupt. Hanzo is their best resource about himself, and they need the record of what he knows. At least he doesn’t seem distressed.

When Hanzo’s voice start to sound strained again, Jesse stops him. Makes Hanzo drink something while he gathers himself. How could having Hanzo back have become such a nightmare?

“Hanzo, I—” Jesse starts, but Hanzo’s flinch stops his voice behind his teeth. That’s happened every time hasn’t it? “You don’t like it when I call you that, do you?”

Hanzo shakes his head.

“We gotta call you somethin’.”

“My designation is—”

“Somethin’ _other_ than that.” Jesse scratches his fingers through his beard, thinking. “How about Shimada?”

Hanzo doesn’t react to that, but it’s better than the flinch. It’s been a long time since Jesse called him that, and those weren’t good days. But then, neither are these. 

“Shimada then. That’s your surname, you know, and folks around here used to call you by it. ‘Cept you brother, that is. He’ll be wantin’ to come up with something else.”

Jesse lets himself trail off there. He's used to having to fill silences when Hanzo wasn't feeling chatty, but this is nothing but desperate rambling. Like, just maybe, if he says the right thing the right way he can knock something loose in Hanzo's head. But Hanzo only stares at him with an almost machine passivity, and Jesse finds that he can't bear it.

“Get some rest. Don’t think twice about askin’ Athena for anything. She can get our attention pretty much anywhere.”

With that, he flees.

 

* * *

 

Jesse slides the door to his commandeered office open and tosses the towel around his neck onto the camp cot presses against the wall. He tugs his fingers through his hair—long, it’s gotten far too long, he thinks for the thousandth time—and looks through the mess on his desk for one of the blue elastic bands. He gathers his hair into a low ponytail and twists the band around it until it holds.

He’ll cut it when there’s time, he thinks, knowing there won’t be time. There hasn’t been yet.

Jesse digs through the hamper by the cot until he finds a new set of clothes. The hamper ended up here along with most everything he uses day to day. Part of it is practicality—he’s spending most of his time here, he might as well have the cot so he doesn’t have to trek back to the main barracks when he’s already dog tired; the shower compartment in this wing needs use, and no one else has a mind to make sure it’s working; and his clothes might as well be where he is. Part of it _isn’t_ , but he’s made a habit of not examining that.

Reflexively, Jesse drops into the chair at the holodesk, and his hands wander to the box of cigarettes in the right hand drawer. Jesse taps a cigarette out of the hole he’d torn in the bottom of the pack and lights it. The mint sting hits the back of his throat as he breathes in the smoke, but repetition has made him accustomed to it. He still can’t say he likes menthols, but the smell reminded him of Hanzo, so he kept putting cases of his Seven Stars on the requisition list and started leaving his own cigars off.

Jesse starts to spin up all his files, the reports and notes and maps he’s used to track Talon activity across the globe, but once they’re up, glowing through the cigarette smoke still hanging in the air, he hesitates. What’s the point of writing up his report, of doing any of this, if Hanzo is here? Jesse takes a long drag and stares at the files. All this effort, and for what?

If Hanzo isn’t dead, then everything he’s done has been worse than pointless. What if Jesse had put all this trouble into trying to find Hanzo, instead of trying to avenge him? Would he still be covered in all those scars, staring at nothing? Or would he still be himself?

Had Hanzo held out hope that Jesse would come? Did he wait for days or weeks or months for a rescue that was never coming? Or had they taken him from himself quickly, turning him into the person waiting in the stripped down medbay room after only a little time?

The festering grief that had been consuming and driving him falters, leaving an awful aching void in his chest, while his thoughts run in every direction at once and the holodesk glows. Somewhere deep down, he’s still furious with himself for taking Hanzo’s presence for granted, for letting himself become complacent. He’d just assumed Hanzo would be there, even for the precious, little things like birthdays, the anniversary that had been months away, or their holidays. It feels naive now he could have ever let himself trust that someone would be with him day after day. There’s a particular part of him that’s grown loud, insisting all this pain was just what a killer like him deserves.

Jesse doesn’t move until the cigarette between his fingers burns him, then he drops it on reflex with a hiss. He sticks his burnt fingers in his mouth and relocates the butt to the ashtray. It’s at that moment someone knocks at the door.

“Yeah?” he shouts in answer, not bothering to not sound annoyed.

“I’ve got dinner,” Fareeha answers. “You’d better be decent.”

The door opens, and, sure enough, there’s his sister. She’s holding a plate that she deposits on the desk without any fanfare.

“’Reeha, I’m not—”

“You have to _eat_.” She pushes a spoon into his face to punctuate.

“You sound like Doc,” he says as he takes it.

“Good, she’s smart.”

Jesse allows himself a bit of sullenness as he spoons something that definitely didn’t originate with an Amari into his mouth. He really wasn’t hungry, but he knows from long experience that arguing with Fareeha is more likely to net him more trouble than just letting her bully him will. Especially when she’s right.

“You okay?” she asks after a moment.

“Doc patched me up fine.”

“I meant, with—” she trails off, her silence encompassing everything. Jesse keeps his eyes on his food. “Dumb thing to ask, I guess.”

Fareeha walks around to his side of the desk and sits on it beside his elbow. Her closeness is a comfort, but she’s looming in a way she has to know is obnoxious.

“This is good, right? He’s alive, Jess.” She reaches out and plants her hand on his shoulder. Jesse sets his spoon down and finally looks up at her. “You’ve got a second chance.”

Jesse remembers the way Hanzo had just _stared through him_. It doesn’t feel like a second chance. Fareeha squeezes his shoulder.

“Mom’s worried about you.”

From her tone, he can tell Fareeha is too. Plenty of that going around, apparently. He pushes the bowl away and leans back in the chair.

“Like you say, he’s back. I’m gonna be fine.”

Fareeha's smile looks sad from this angle. Like she knows he's bullshitting her.

“Okay, bubba. If you say so.” Fareeha claps his shoulder and picks up the bowl. “Seriously, though. You can talk to me. You know that right?”

“‘Course I do, Ree.”

“Good.”

Once she’s back out the door, Jesse lights another cigarette and admits to himself that he’s exhausted. He powers down the desk and moves things around it to kill time while he finishes his smoke. Once the nicotine really takes hold, he moves to the cot, grabbing his phone as he does.

He settles onto his back, wincing at first as his mostly healed bullet wounds take his weight, but gets comfortable after only a few moments. Out of habit, he pulls up a particular file on his phone. A voicemail.

The last one he had from Hanzo before he went missing.

Jesse had never appreciated before now how precious it was to have a record of the voice of someone who was gone. Even if the memory had teeth, it was priceless to be able to hear him again. Jesse queues it up and sets the phone beside his head.

_It’s me. I heard you’re on your way back already, and that the mission went well. Good. Don’t eat if you haven’t already, I got you something. I think you’ll like it. Also, you’re going to explain to me how you’ve organized your clothes drawers, because it looks like chaos to me. Yes, I did your laundry. No, I didn’t bleach anything._

_That was one time, don’t bring it up._

_I’m glad you’re coming back. I hate it when you’re gone._

_See you soon, Jesse._

 

* * *

 

Habit has Jesse on his feet before dawn. Normally he’d use this time to train or work, but today he’s in the kitchen. Smell, he's heard, can have deep ties to memory, and there was a time when the smell of pancakes could rouse Hanzo from a dead sleep. Besides, he'll need to eat. Two birds, one stone. 

Jesse packs enough calories for a super solider—a nearly perfect stack of pancakes, eggs, hash, sausage—along with his coup d'etat, a prim little box he found in the back of the freezer, onto a tray. He walks as fast as he dares towards the medbay. Surely Athena would have warned him if something had happened in the night, but Jesse wants to see him for himself.  

Jesse makes sure to knock before coming in, but Athena opens the door too quickly for Hanzo to have given his assent. He’s sitting up in bed, which is better than standing at attention or just lying there, but it’s still strange to see.

“I got breakfast for you. I hope you’re hungry.”

Hanzo watches him set down the tray, and starts eating once Jesse steps away. He picks at the eggs first, then the pancakes, then moves to the hash. Jesse nudges the box, full of chocolate dipped strawberries, toward him. Hanzo hesitates briefly, then abandons everything else to systematically eat through the box, leaving only the frost damaged leaves and stems behind. When it's empty, Hanzo looks a little off put, but that blankness quickly settles back over his features.

“You like those?” Jesse asks softly.

“Yes.”

Jesse hopes the genuine note he hears in that one word is real. Hanzo starts back in the pancakes, the next sweetest thing, but with less enthusiasm. Jesse can’t help the small smile on his face as he watches him. His sweet tooth, at least, is still the same.

Once he’s done, Jesse starts gathering up his dishes. Hopefully, that’ll be enough to keep him full. He’ll have to talk to Morrison and Doc about anything else he’ll need. He’ll also have to remember to get more of those strawberries.

“I’ll be back in a bit. You need anythin’?”

Another one of those confused expression passes over Hanzo’s face before he can catch himself.

“I—What are my orders?” Hanzo asks.

“Oh darlin’, I just want you to get better.”

 


End file.
